Be An Energy Star: 20+ Reddit Tips That Help To Slash Your Utility Bill

Is your utility bill killing you? Costs for gas, oil, water, and other natural resources rise steadily. In great parts of Europe, Australia, and Japan the worst price driver is electricity.

Who would have thought that Reddit is a source of wisdom that can help you counter-balance these developments. Upon closer inspection, however, it’s not so surprising. Reddit is a haven for geeks, nerds, and intellectuals, interested in all sorts of niche topics, including energy efficiency and saving money. Moreover, Reddit is a community where everyone can contribute, regardless of education, status, or rank. And most importantly, contributions are evaluated by the community. In other words, Reddit is crowd wisdom at its best and a great resource for solving everyday problems, like gigantic utility bills.

Prologue

I dived into this article thinking I would hammer out a list with tips & tricks sourced from Reddit. To the detriment of my Saturday evening and Sunday morning, I found much more than the expected conventional wisdom and urban legends. Reddit supplied me with a great selection of articles and discussions, which in turn provided significant depth to this topic.

Energy Prices

Depending on where you live, electricity can be expensive. Most importantly, it is a significant factor on your utility bill, especially if you heat your house, heat water, and cook with electricity. Let’s see what Reddit’s wisdom is on cutting those costs!

If you have the freedom to switch your energy provider, try to get a better price. You might even be eligible for reduced rates based on your household income.

Buying Decisions

One of the biggest insights was found in a link to a survey. Researchers at The Earth Institute of New York’s Columbia University conducted a survey and published their results on how clueless consumers are in regards to saving energy. The study noted that switching to more efficient technologies was more effective than behavior change, something few consumers realized.

In other words, switching the lights off will save very little energy. Making the right buying decisions when purchasing new appliances is far more cost-effective in the long run. That said, a little behavior change on top of that certainly won’t hurt.

Using Appliances Efficiently

Choosing the most energy efficient device you can find makes sense when you have to get a new one. In most cases, however, it makes more sense to use appliances until they stop working. After all, replacing them costs money, too. Meanwhile, pick up all the motivation and discipline you can get hold of and try to change your behavior.

To be honest, these savings will only amount to a significant sum, if you are consistent and manage to address as many points as possible. Hence, I grouped the most effective behavior changes for each item under one action point.

This is what Reddit has to teach you:

Your fridge and freezer consume electricity 24/7. Relax the temperature and go only as cold as you really need. Your fridge or freezer will be more energy efficient when full because air doesn’t retain temperature very well. Fill empty space with water containers or other dense materials. If you never need all of the space in your fridge or freezer, consider getting a smaller one next time. Meanwhile, vacuum the coils of your old fridge and freezer to help them cool more efficiently.

Retire your dryer and hang up your clothes on a drying rack. They will dry for free. If you are forced to use a dryer, make sure the vent pipe and lint trap are clean, so it works at maximum efficiency.

Heating

This appears to be the most sensitive topic, although it only affects people during part of the year. If you live in a country that gets real winters and snow, heating is very likely the biggest item on your utility or electricity bill. Here is what Reddit recommends:

Don’t heat more than you have to! Shut the doors of the rooms that you’re keeping warm. Insulate your windows with window film or bubble wrap and lock them to reduce drafts.

Let the sun in during the day and close the drapes to keep the warm air away from the windows when the sun is gone.

Put on socks, wear slippers, and extra layers of clothes to stay warm.

Turn the thermostat down at night or when you leave the house. Ideally, get programmable thermostats and have an expert help you set them up.

Keep your bedroom cool all the time. Use a thick duvet to keep you warm. Put a bottle filled with hot water into your bed before you go sleep.

If the humidity in your place is very low, try to get it up to 40 – 50 per cent. Dry air will suck moisture from your skin, which will make you feel chilled, even at warm temperatures. Put a pan of water on your heater or dry your clothes on a rack indoors. Be careful with moisture though, it can also promote molding.

Cooking

When cooking or boiling food on a stove, use a lid. This decreases cooking time as food is steamed as well as boiled or cooked.

Air-Conditioning

Most Reddit users appear to worry more about heating than cooling as I could find only very little on this topic. The few discussions I did find, however, were very fruitful.

while it written with UK policies in mind, this free to read book is excellent for debunking energy myths and telling us where we should really be concentrating our efforts:http://www.withouthotair.com/

well worth reading (i tended to skip the maths bits, trusting them to be ok)

Of course, these tips depend on where you live and what types of appliances, windows, etc. you have. The variables are enormous. However, just as a caution, if you have double-pane windows, be very careful on what you put on them to help reduce the loss of heat or cool air. Some methods actually damage the glass/window. Voice of experience speaking here. :( Also, contact your utility company – ours here will send a representative out to make suggestions on how to cut costs. This is a free service. Every little bit you do adds up to savings. Turn lights off when you leave a room may seem like a no-brainer but I was surprised to discover many people don’t. We live in a rental and when we were organizing the kitchen, the recessed lights kept going out. It was driving us nuts. Finally, a bulb just wouldn’t go on at all so hubby climbed the ladder to replace it. He found that in each fixture, the previous tenants had used 100W bulbs! Each fixture also came with a warning not to install a bulb higher than 60W. It is a wonder that the place didn’t catch fire. We removed all the 100W bulbs and installed the CFL equivalent to 60W incandescent bulbs. We have plenty of light in there too. The previous tenant must have had high energy bills because every fixture we checked had 100W incandescent bulbs in them. Like I said, little things help a lot. We got a programmable thermostat for our heating/cooling system which paid for itself the first month! Thanks for all the great tips here.

The previous tenant might have had vission problems requiring him/her to use 100 watt bulbs for brightness. Of course, (s)he could have used 100 watt equivalent CFLs. However, CFLs are expensive in comparison to incandescents. As you say, the number of variables is tremendous.

Here is my energy tip. On electric hot water heaters I have a timer installed (little Gray tmer). I only run the the heater 2hrs in the morn @ 125 degrees.
I have saved 150 to 200 kW hrs a month. You have to fine tune for your family.

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This review may contain affiliate links, which pays us a small compensation if you do decide to make a purchase based on our recommendation. Our judgement is in no way biased, and our recommendations are always based on the merits of the items.